December 10th is coming up fast, so heres Chomsky on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights fifteen years back in its fiftieth anniversary year - 50 years since (having defeated Hitler) the human species officially decided and stated what the human species was. He gets to Article 19 at minute 30. Our own Bill of Rights offers freedom of the press - of the press few remaining owners - to tell us what they want us to hear. UDHR Article 19 asserts the freedom of _the public_ to hear the diversity of available information and ideas in media, such as, you know, theyd have in a democracy. Lets move on to Article 19. ARTICLE 19 says that EVERYONE HAS THE FREEDOM TO SEEK, RECEIVE, AND IMPART INFORMATION AND IDEAS THROUGH ANY MEDIA. Well, theres no law that bars that in the United States, but the institutional structures very clearly do prevent it, and quite radically. So theres no law that bars me from saying, now, correctly, that the United States has been one of the leading opponents, maybe the leading opponent, given its strength, of the three major pillars of the post-war order: The Bretton Woods system, the UN Charter, and the Universal Declaration. Theres no law that prevents me from saying that the United States attacked _South_ Vietnam under the Kennedy Administration in 1961, and extended the war to _all of Indochina_: or theres no law that prevents me from doing what I just did, pointing out that the World Court condemned the U.S for unlawful use of force in Nicaragua and that the U.S. was carrying out a major terrorist war in the region, in large part a war against the [Catholic] Church. Theres nothing that prevents saying all these things but theyre not part of - to say that people have _access_ to relevant information about that would be a joke. ... The White House made a public statement, the only one I know of, on the MAI [Multilateral Agreement on Investment]. And in that statement the Under-Secretary of State and the Trade Representative assured their audience that the Clinton Administration was fervently committed to the ideals of democracy, and it was making sure that, as they put it, The domestic constituencies that have a vital stake in this issue are informed and directly involved. And in fact, they said the US is leading the way at the OECD in ensuring that this will be the case. This public statement, as far as I know, was never reported. But its an interesting one if you think it through, it tells you very clearly how the democratic process and the Universal Declaration are conceived by those in power. So who are the domestic constituencies who are directly involved and have a stake? Well, not Congress, cos they werent informed. Certainly not the public, they were kept out of it totally, thanks to the free press and its commitment to Article 19 of the U.D. But there were domestic constituencies which were informed and intimately involved - like the U.S. Council for Business Operations. Well, if you think it through - its not a very hard job - you learn a very important lesson: one that really oughtta be taught in eighth grade civics, and, uh, you know, Graduate Departments of Political Science and so on.
Posted on: Wed, 03 Dec 2014 07:52:06 +0000